Math teacher called `hero' for tackling gunman in Colorado school shooting

LITTLETON, COLO. — The scene unfolded Tuesday afternoon with shocking familiarity — a shooting outside a Jefferson County school, wounded students, heroic teachers, frantic parents.
When it was over, a man with a history of mental problems was in jail, accused of opening fire with a hunting rifle; two eighth-graders were hospitalized — one in critical condition.
The bizarre burst of gunfire that erupted just after 3 p.m. at Deer Creek Middle School, 9201 W. Columbine Drive, ended when David Benke, a 57-year-old math teacher, rushed the shooter, wrestled him to the ground and held on as others helped him subdue the man.
"I haven't cried in 20 years, but I cried like a baby and thanked Jesus," said Bob Wilson, who pulled to the side of the road to gather himself after his daughter, Elizabeth, called to tell him what happened. "This day could have been so much worse.
"You never know when your whole life could turn upside down." The two injured teenagers were identified as Matt Thieu and Reagan Weber.
Matt, initially treated at Littleton Adventist Hospital, was later transferred to Children's Hospital, where he was in critical condition late Tuesday night. Reagan was treated at the Littleton hospital and released a few hours later.
Jefferson County authorities identified the alleged gunman as Bruco Strong Eagle Eastwood, 32. He was held on two counts of attempted murder, said Jacki Kelley, spokeswoman for
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the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.
His father, Bruco War Eagle Eastwood, said his son heard voices and struggled financially.
"I don't know why he did this, but he's always had problems. I don't know why, though," the elder Eastwood said. "He's different, just different." He also has an arrest record dating back to 1996 — including three incidents in which he was accused of threatening someone with a weapon.
The elder Eastwood said the gun, a bolt-action .30-06, was his, though he was not sure when his son took it.
Deer Creek and nearby Stony Creek Elementary School will be closed today. It is the second shooting at Deer Creek — in 1982, a teen shot and killed a student outside the school.
Deer Creek is located just a few miles from Columbine High, the scene of the deadliest public school shooting in American history.
On April 20, 1999, two Columbine seniors murdered a dozen students and a teacher and wounded more than 20 others before killing themselves. When authorities announced that the two students wounded Tuesday were expected to survive, it was clear the scale of the incident was much different than that.
And yet, the scenes that unfolded Tuesday were eerily similar.
Helicopters clattering overhead. An unending array of flashing red and blue lights. Parents driving down clogged neighborhood streets, parking willy-nilly, desperate to find their kids. Youngsters walking down the sidewalk with blank eyes and 1,000-yard stares.
Tuesday's trouble started in the middle of what had been a routine after-school scene.
The bus lane on the west side of the school and the street out front were jammed just after 3 p.m. as the day's final bell rang.
Students burst from the doors.
Steven Seagraves, 14, was outside the front door when a man wearing a fedora walked up and asked a group of kids whether they attended that school. After several of them answered with a "yeah," the man opened fire with a high-powered rifle.
"All of a sudden we hear this huge bang," said Steve Potter, a bus driver. "I thought somebody had an M-80." Benke was on a regular shift patrolling the parking lot when he heard a sound as though "someone lit a firecracker in a garbage can." Benke saw the gunman and realized he was trying to reload his bolt-action rifle.
Benke charged.
"I grabbed him by the front, and we were kind of dancing around for a while," Benke said hours later. "The next thing I remember, we were on the ground struggling." As Benke shoved the man to the ground, teachers Norm Hanne and Becky Brown jumped in. Brown pulled the gun out of the shooter's reach.
Just behind them came Potter and another bus driver, Jim O'Brien. The group held the man down. Someone appeared with plastic "zip" ties and shackled his ankles. As he lay on the ground, trapped beneath all those bodies, the man uttered unintelligible obscenities, Potter said.
In the meantime, teachers shouted for kids to get down and not make any noise. Others ran. Panicked parents rushed for their youngsters.
Students were rushed to nearby Stony Creek Elementary, where they waited for their parents.
Tangie Hardy said the words didn't sink in when her 14-year-old son, Princeton, told her what he had seen: A man with a rifle walked right past him and approached two schoolmates, then opened fire.
"Right now, I feel like throwing up, and I don't even think it's hit me yet," she said.
School district officials have been training for a situation like Tuesday's ever since Columbine.
"We talk about these things all the time," said John McDonald, the school district's safety director. "We've practiced. We are very proud of our staff. They went on lockdown very quickly. They did exactly what they were supposed to do." Kelley, the Sheriff's Office spokeswoman, said investigators believe the gunman had been seen at the school earlier in the day, but they weren't sure why.
9News reported that Eastwood attended the school in 1992.
Benke, the teacher who charged the man, was teaching in Gilpin County when Columbine happened. Over the years, when he has talked to his students about drills for what would happen in a situation like the one that unfolded Tuesday, he would tell them "I just hoped that I would have the courage" to do something.
Tuesday, he did.
It was the talk of the town.
"He's the real hero," said Potter, the bus driver.
Someone launched a page on Facebook called "Dr. David Benke Is A Hero!!!!" By late Tuesday it had more than 7,100 members. Among them was Sue Petrone, whose son, Danny Rohrbough, was murdered at Columbine.